Sections

We’re not surprised that the DSL-N13 wasn’t able to deliver the 300Mbit/s theoretical maximum of 802.11n wireless, but it would be nice to see results at least besting 100Mbit Ethernet. Moreover, the routers MIMO capability doesn’t seem to offer much benefit in the situation it should prove most useful: connecting at a distance, through walls.

Even if the DSL-N13 did provide ultra-fast Wi-Fi it wouldn’t prove amazingly useful, as it doesn’t offer Gigabit Ethernet. As such there’s less benefit to the DSL-N13’s Wi-Fi exceeding 100Mbit/s anyway, as its wired interface is limited to that speed. Not that we’re willing to accept that as an excuse.

In the DSL-N13’s defence, it is fast enough to make transferring even multi-gigabyte files to an attached USB device limited by that interface, and to exceed most broadband connections, so these speed limitations might not be noticeable in the real world.

Outright performance isn’t quite its forte, then. Fortunately there’s more to the DSL-N13, helping to separate it from the pack. As a quick peak around the back betrays, the four Ethernet jacks are accompanied by a pair of USB ports. These enable connection of either a printer, which can then be accessed over the DSL-N13’s local network, or a storage device.

First, this lets the DSL-N13 double up as a (admittedly fairly basic) NAS device, as long as you don’t mind it being a fairly slow one. Second, with Asus’ AiDisk service you can assign your router an FTP address (routed via Asus and dynamically updated) giving you access to your files over the Internet. Obviously there are other ways of doing this, but it’s useful to have it built into the router itself and it does work.

Verdict

The Asus DSL-N13 Wireless ADSL 2/2+ Modem Router doesn’t break any boundaries with its wireless performance. Luckily it has a number of useful extra features to entice buyers.